Uber Technologies (UBER) will benefit from the long-term trend for autonomous vehicles, Wedbush said in a Tuesday note.
Wedbush analysts said that the transition to autonomous vehicles will be a "rising tide" for all industry players, including Tesla (TSLA) and Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) Waymo. Uber will play a key role specifically as a significant component of the network and distribution layer, as operators will need a partner to build out their networks, the analysts said.
Uber has aggressively entered into partnerships with autonomous vehicle providers to solve the challenge of supply fragmentation, the analysts said. They also said that while investors remain concerned about autonomous vehicles, early indicators currently favor the company, with Uber AV Mobility Trips up 10 times from a year ago and are currently live in eight cities.
Further, the company's autonomous vehicles business is not showing signs of taking trips away from human drivers, the analysts noted.
The company is on track to be facilitating autonomous vehicle trips in around 15 cities by the end of 2026, and targets to be the largest facilitator of such trips globally by 2029.
According to the note, Uber expects to allot more than $10 billion of capital over the next few years as it scales operations through equity investments, infrastructure and vehicle offtake commitments, according to the note.
Wedbush's rating on the company's stock is outperform with a price target of $91.
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